Windows 10: Swapping out my Asus Z97-K CSM build to a Z97-E USB 3.1 motherboard

Hello Guys. I will be swapping out my Asus Z97-K CSM build to a Z97-E USB 3.1 motherboard. Very similar architecture. The Z97-E USB 3.1 has a few more features, a little more speed and the UEFI BIOS has the exact same features. I am doing this for a backup machine for myself and rather than do "another" new install I have a second license for Windows 10 which I will use to activate this machine.

Commonalities:

1. Very similar Motherboards
2. Exact same Tower NZXT 410 Phantom
3. Exact same CPU i5-4690K
4. Exact same RAM Corsair Vengeance 2400 16GB
5. Exact same Optical Drive
6. Exact same EVGA GTX 970 SSC 4GB Video Card
7. Exact same Corsair Hydro H60 CLC CPU Cooler

In the past I have used the OOBE/Sysprep command and it worked just fine for previous builds with similar hardware. In this case, the hardware is identical in both builds,

As the title of my post says: System Image Backup to secondary drive FIRST. Having said that I will first go into BIOS on the Z97-E USB 3.1 and make sure the BIOS is set to default. Then I will pop the SSD with W10 and installed programs into the 1150 socket. If all goes well, wonderful! If not. I will put the drive back into my previous build and use the System Image for Recovery. Then I will use the OOBE command in PowerShell or elevated command prompt:

%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown


When all is done I will report back to let everyone know which method worked best on this system.

The banner below goes to my validation of the current build on the Z97-K mobo. I used the UEFI BIOS OC-Wizard to reach maximum performance (33% increase in CPU speed). Just click the banner to see the results. By way the CPU-Z is free software and very popular for PC Enthusiasts.

Well done, thanks for sharing